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The heritability of intelligence is overhyped, and in my opinion of no practical use. It's extremely hard to find data where it is even possible to distinguish

The heritability of intelligence is overhyped, and in my opinion of no practical use. It's extremely hard to find data where it is even possible to distinguish between genetic and environmental influence. That would be the studies of the kind "twins raised apart". And that already excludes the reality that those twins will probably grow up in a similar background, similar health and educational system etc. The talk about heritable IQ is pointless, even dangerous, because it leads to complacency around issues around structural racism and equality in education.

pjscott 5y ago
The usual studies for disentangling genetics and environment involve twins raised together: they get basically the same shared environment -- this is a feature, not a bug -- but identical twins are more closely related than fraternal twins. For example, say you're trying to find out how much of adult height comes down to genetics (in a modern, non-malnourished environment). You measure the heights of a bunch of twins and compare: how much more similar are the heights of identical twins than the heights of fraternal twins? Do a bit of calculating and you've got a number for heritability.
- bayesian_horse 5y ago
  Yes. But then people take that street number from a "twins raised together" study and quote it as heritability of intelligence overall. My problem with this: Yes, if you put extreme limits on the environmental factors, you are mostly left with genetic factors. But that is not the reality of Human existence.
daenz 5y ago
>The talk about heritable IQ is pointless, even dangerous, because it leads to complacency around issues around structural racism and equality in education. Can you say more about this? Why would it lead to complacency? If there is scientific merit to some ideas like IQ heritability, don't you think we need to find a way to incorporate those ideas safely into our formulation of society, rather than suppress them as heretical?
- bayesian_horse 5y ago
  You never heard about the trope of African people being called genetically inferior? That one is reverberating around time and space in a million variations. And if intelligence is genetic, well, you don't need to improve their public schools to help them achieve equal grades, do you?
  - daenz 5y ago
    My understanding of IQ is that its not fully heritable... an individual's potential is maximized by their environment, up to some limit. This alone gives a strong argument for improving public schools especially where students may be falling behind. So I am still not understanding the complacency aspect fully. I suppose a bigoted person could say "well those kids are dumb, they're expected to do bad." But the counter to that is, "they can do much better than they're doing," and the science would support it.
lmilcin 5y ago
This is dangerous view IMO. Knowledge should not be suppressed just because some people might interpret it incorrectly. If you fear the problem is "complacency around issues around structural racism and equality in education" then why not address those problems head on rather than propose to not talk about heritable IQ? I mean both structural racism and equality in education aren't at all difficult problems. They are only made difficult because large part of population is still effectively racist, has racist role models and has approval from government officials. It apparently is ok for people to be racist. If you are racist today, you can happily live with friends that have the same view and tune out the rest of the world that does not agree with you. And as long as it is ok for people to be racist they will always find some kind of excuse for their beliefs whether it is heritable IQ or something else.
- beebeepka 5y ago
  It's been a tough week but I fail to pinpoint what you disagree with
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]

pjscott 5y ago

The usual studies for disentangling genetics and environment involve twins raised together: they get basically the same shared environment -- this is a feature, not a bug -- but identical twins are more closely related than fraternal twins. For example, say you're trying to find out how much of adult height comes down to genetics (in a modern, non-malnourished environment). You measure the heights of a bunch of twins and compare: how much more similar are the heights of identical twins than the heights of fraternal twins? Do a bit of calculating and you've got a number for heritability.

bayesian_horse 5y ago
Yes. But then people take that street number from a "twins raised together" study and quote it as heritability of intelligence overall. My problem with this: Yes, if you put extreme limits on the environmental factors, you are mostly left with genetic factors. But that is not the reality of Human existence.

daenz 5y ago

>The talk about heritable IQ is pointless, even dangerous, because it leads to complacency around issues around structural racism and equality in education. Can you say more about this? Why would it lead to complacency? If there is scientific merit to some ideas like IQ heritability, don't you think we need to find a way to incorporate those ideas safely into our formulation of society, rather than suppress them as heretical?

bayesian_horse 5y ago
You never heard about the trope of African people being called genetically inferior? That one is reverberating around time and space in a million variations. And if intelligence is genetic, well, you don't need to improve their public schools to help them achieve equal grades, do you?
- daenz 5y ago
  My understanding of IQ is that its not fully heritable... an individual's potential is maximized by their environment, up to some limit. This alone gives a strong argument for improving public schools especially where students may be falling behind. So I am still not understanding the complacency aspect fully. I suppose a bigoted person could say "well those kids are dumb, they're expected to do bad." But the counter to that is, "they can do much better than they're doing," and the science would support it.

lmilcin 5y ago

This is dangerous view IMO. Knowledge should not be suppressed just because some people might interpret it incorrectly. If you fear the problem is "complacency around issues around structural racism and equality in education" then why not address those problems head on rather than propose to not talk about heritable IQ? I mean both structural racism and equality in education aren't at all difficult problems. They are only made difficult because large part of population is still effectively racist, has racist role models and has approval from government officials. It apparently is ok for people to be racist. If you are racist today, you can happily live with friends that have the same view and tune out the rest of the world that does not agree with you. And as long as it is ok for people to be racist they will always find some kind of excuse for their beliefs whether it is heritable IQ or something else.

beebeepka 5y ago
It's been a tough week but I fail to pinpoint what you disagree with
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]